


skin

by Yossarian



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Unresolved Romantic Tension, implied repeating timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 21:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14293551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yossarian/pseuds/Yossarian
Summary: Zarya hunts vampires. Something is familiar.





	skin

You slam three severed heads onto the slab and grin to show that your teeth are bloodied. After a brief inspection, you get three pieces of gold and a new bounty notice covered in wax to protect against liquids. You nod and move out of the way.

It's not your first choice of career, vampire slaying, but it's been going well, so you cannot complain. You wear men's clothes and ignore the eyes it earns you; you wield a two-handed axe with surprising grace for your size and ignore the murmurs. You are being built, your body honed. You are like a brick. You shear your hair messily short, let it stain red-on-blonde pink with blood, and perhaps hear more about that than your incredibly successful runs.

You watch a woman in worn gingham try to pass a human head for monster and shake your own head slowly in pitying disbelief. Where are the human heads from? She is far from the only one to try. Vampires' victims, you hope, and not neighbors brought to the axe in hope of gold.

You retrieve your weapon, sharp and neat now, and try not to worry that it still feels wrong in your hands, like you should be wielding something much heavier. You've tried other things, but none were quite right, either. It's one of those tricks of the brain, you're sure. You heft the axe over your shoulder like you could ever look casual with blood all down your front.

"Why, Aleksandra," booms a man's voice, "if I hadn't know what to expect, I might think you were infected, stained there!"

You want to smile, but you put on an exaggerated smirk for him. "Reinhardt, you know the secret is to spit, never swallow," and you both laugh a little too hard. Times are dark to be joking, even with friends. Sheriff Wilhelm wears plate armor that would be absurdly large on anyone else, and he's welded his badge to the front now that the armor never comes off. Day _and_  night are risky, now. The two of you rarely cease to be on alert.

You nudge Reinhardt with the flat of a palm. "Any tips for me?"

He grunts the affirmative low in his throat, lowers his natural bellow to keep the smaller hopefuls from hearing—some folks would die, taking on the groups you can take—and describes a former travellers' cache that seems to have been taken over. "No one has returned in some time now," he says sadly. "We must assume the worst and clean out the nest."

You swap the shoulder of your axe so you can shake his hand. "I will be back," you say. It's not a message of hope so much as a statement of fact. If you were to disappear, you would be missed and not wondered about, but you are not the type to succumb to these beasts.

Nothing unusual makes itself known on your way to the cache, and you wonder for a moment if you'd thought of the wrong place, but then you can smell it: death, rot, blood, and _skin_ , somehow. It's how they always smell. You are ready.

You enter a clearing, dried leaves crunching beneath your boots, and wait for something vicious to fly out at you. It doesn't happen, it keeps not happening, and you are briefly unsure if your tracking skills have begun to fail you.

Then you see that you are not alone. A woman in a strange dress, no corset and no bustle, sits atop a simple wooden chair that her manner turns into a throne. She sings with the scent of undeath.

"Greetings," she says, and you stop like the truly dead.

"You are sentient," you say. "You are one of them?"

"I don't know," she says, and she delicately pinches part of her lip between two fingers and lifts to show you a vampire's fang. "Are these real? They feel sort of uninspired, to be honest. I could make better."

"Uninspired," you echo.

"And my skin," says the vampire. "It is beyond ashen. What is this? Do I want blood, or do I want to want blood, because that is the beast I've been made?"

You need to kill her.

"Why send me up with thoughtless goons for an opening act? They did not respond to me," she tells you. "They could not. They had no sentience that I could recognize; they worked only by urge. Of course, I am different. I am complete."

You need to kill her.

"I imagine I could work something out," she muses. "Plenty of folks think vampires are—goodness—romantic. I could play off of this, get all the sustenance I need, never hurt a soul. And I would be your greatest asset in hunting down my...simpler compatriots. Don't you think?"

"I need to kill you," you say.

Her eyes get sad. "I had hoped this time would be different, Zarya," she says. "See how I thought this through? And you will not believe, _not believe_ some of the things I can do, especially with blood."

"If it helps," you say, "I am sorry."

She looks genuinely interested. "Are you?"

"I am sorry for the person that you were," you say. "She must have been incredibly strong-minded. Normal people are like zombies when infected. I suppose she was a genius."

"Was," she whispers.

"It is always a shame to know the good ones have gone over," you say, and her hand is at your throat, her eyes red in your eyes, her mouth open and fangs bared and an animal hiss just waiting—

She releases you. She closes her mouth and turns away. "You think I am not a genius anymore," she says carefully. "You did not even notice that I know your name."

Your blood runs cold, that's the expression, but you know it pumps warm and inviting, and you suddenly know fear. "You have seen me working," you guess.

She smiles, unreadable. "No."

"You have followed me."

"No, or not on purpose."

"You knew me," you say slowly, "before."

"That is as close to a truth as we can ever get," she says. "What I need to know, Zarya, is what will satisfy you. When can we draw the line between human and monster?"

Your stance has you ready to swing, but you are listening, despite yourself. "I feel most comfortable when there is a stake in the heart," you tell her, "or really any weapon to the heart."

"Zarya," she says, snake-soft, "a human would react the same way. We all die when you take us apart, don't we?"

She is so close. So close and you're not killing her. She's leaning in closer and you don't know what you want but right now it's her lips on your collarbone. She brushes her fangs against your skin, just lightly, teasing, and you bring your hands up to cup her face.

You snap her neck. As you kick her corpse to the forest floor and drive your axe into her heart, again and again, you have the strangest déjà vu. Of course you've done this many times, but that's not the memory you're stuck on; it's the kiss, it's her voice, and you feel the world spinning as it moves and drags you with it.


End file.
